As the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission was preparing to issue licenses to facilities authorized to grow, process, dispense, sale and transport cannabis on Jan. 9, a circuit judge has temporarily halted the process amid another round of lawsuits.
A handful of unsuccessful applicants said the commission failed to follow its scoring rules when it awarded the five integrated facility licenses, Dec. 12.
Montgomery Circuit Judge James Anderson, in an order Jan. 3, said the public interest and the balancing of equities favors granting immediate injunctive relief.
“The court is sympathetic to the public interest in getting medicine in the hand of patients,” said Anderson. “Any balancing of the inequities here weighs heavily in favor of the plaintiffs, whose injury will likely be irreparable if immediate injunctive relief is denied and the commission issues licenses, thus virtually eliminating any reasonable chance for Plaintiffs to obtain any meaningful review of the adverse licensing decision.”
Wagon Trail Hemp Farms (Wagon Trail Med-Serv, LLC) of Dodge City was one of five companies which expected to receive an integrated facility license from the commission Jan. 9.
Joey Robertson, managing partner for Wagon Trails, told the Cullman Times that they were planning to quickly build out the portion of its medical cannabis operation that the new license covers and begin selling medical cannabis in 2024.
“An aggressive timeline would be as early as next spring [to have product ready for sale],” Robertson said in a December interview. “But we certainly plan to have cultivation commence 45 days after the Jan. 9 receipt of our license.”
The December awarding of licenses was the third time that commission made selections after retracting two prior votes, subsequently revising its selection procedures. Other lawsuits are still pending from June, when the initial awarding of licenses occurred. Lawsuits have been filed by applicants who weren’t selected for licenses at all, or were selected previously but had ahead of the commission’s retracted votes.
A hearing is scheduled for Jan. 24 to hear arguments in the case.
Anderson also issued a temporary restraining order Dec. 28 to stop the commission from issuing licenses to four dispensaries due to pending lawsuits in a separate case.
Brittany Peters, a spokeswoman for the commission, told the Associated Press Dec. 29 that the commission has issued licenses to companies in other licenses categories to either cultivate, process, transport or test marijuana.